Elmer Smith | Improving,schools have right to dream

THE BEAN counters want to see a five-year plan before they come up with more money for public schools.

Well, I got your five-year plan right here.

I'm not talking about the 4-inch, multihued game plan that school district CEO Paul Vallas has cobbled together in response to the mayor's mandate.

The five years that I would have them look at is what has happened since 2002, when the shotgun marriage between the city and state was first consummated. You could turn it inside out, upside down or read it from back to front.

You get the same results.

By any reasonable standard, the School District of Philadelphia has moved incrementally but undeniably in the right direction. Schools have increased graduation rates, shown steady improvement in standardized tests, and dramatically increased the number of newly hired teachers who are fully certified from 59 percent to 92 percent.

The district has gone from 26 to 166 schools meeting the federal No Child Left Behind Act's Adequate Yearly Progress standard. And, despite a recent spike in reports of assaults on teachers, even those numbers are down, along with serious incident reports overall.

They have done it with a system that has spliced together more moving parts than an internal combustion engine. In all categories - charter schools, privately managed schools, district-run schools - we have seen improved outcomes. Something is working. Those results don't justify just throwing money at the district, to dredge up one of the more tired and misleading metaphors. But maybe, just maybe, it's time to stop treating these kids like those fly-specked waifs with the sad eyes they trot out on late-night TV.

This ain't charity. We're talking enlightened self-interest here.

Which may be why we're seeing more of a buy-in and fewer of the standardized excuses from key players as we drift into this budget cycle. City Councilman Wilson Goode Jr. introduced a bill two months ago to increase the portion of the wage tax devoted to public schools from 36 percent to 40 percent. It would yield about $97 million in additional funding over the next five years.

It's small potatoes in a $2 billion budget, equal to less than the likely inflation rate. But it's a dedicated funding stream and not another of those one-time-only lifebuoys funders like to throw out.

"I didn't solicit co-sponsors," Goode said. "I knew it would get caught up in the budget cycle, and the mayor has talked about not making any decisions until the Educational Advisory Task Force issues its report.

"As the process moves forward, we're asked not to consider a budget proposal until April 30th."

But there is broad-based support for the bill. And the mayoral candidates have signed on. Goode said he has commitments from Chaka Fattah, Dwight Evans, Michael Nutter and Bob Brady. Tom Knox has agreed, pending a rise in state funding.

"I'm committed to it," Nutter told me yesterday. "I'm also in favor of the city coming up with the $10 million it owes the school district."

The $10 million would reimburse the district for the city's Beacon Schools and for the salaries of several city empoyees who oversee school budgets.

If the state budget, which is likely to pass in late spring, provides the $54 million hike the district wants, an anticipated deficit that could rise to $1 billion in five years could be eliminated.

Throw in a few efficiencies and cost-cutting measures, and we might actually be able to fund some innovative programs.

"I could modernize every 6th-to-12th-grade classroom in the system for just $20 million with whiteboards and laptops," Vallas told me this week.

"We could reduce class size and fully fund our dropout-prevention initiative Project U Turn. We need more alternative and transition schools for the overaged underachievers and kids who are chronically disruptive . . . " Castles in the sky? Maybe. But five years of slow, steady progress should at least earn you the right to dream. *

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith